


jenny, darling

by Pugglemuggle



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Awkward Crush, Best Friends, Crushes, Doing each other's makeup becomes strangely intimate, Eyeliner, F/F, Feelings Realization, Foreshadowing, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Makeup, Pining, Pre-Canon, Queer Themes, Realization, Sad Ending, Sapphic, Unrequited Love, doing each other's makeup, homoerotic tension, i mean they're ghosts in the comic so like, implied eventual character death, this is so gay smh, what do you expect, wlw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 04:13:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11051106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pugglemuggle/pseuds/Pugglemuggle
Summary: “I could do it for you, if you want.”Mandy paused. “…What?”“I could do your eyeshadow,” Jenny said. “But like, only if you want me to?”—The night of the rush event is maybe not the best time for Mandy to start questioning her feelings for Jenny.





	jenny, darling

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for Day 11 of the [OMGCP Women Fest.](https://omgcpwomen.tumblr.com) It can be found on tumblr [here](http://pugglemuggle.tumblr.com/post/158275668588/the-rest-of-our-lives-mandyjenny).

“Do you think I should do, like, waterproof eyeliner? Or just regular?” Jenny asked. “Because, like, they haven’t told us _anything_ about this rush event, you know? And I just want to be, like, ready for whatever.”

Mandy looked up from where she was painting her nails on Jenny’s bed. Jenny was standing over her expectantly, holding two tubes of makeup and biting her bottom lip. In the end, Jenny had opted for shorts and her red Samwell top, the one that always kept slipping off her shoulders. She looked cute—but then, Jenny looked cute in everything, Mandy thought.

“I’d definitely go with the waterproof one,” Mandy said finally. “Just to be safe. Runny makeup totally blows.”

“That’s what I was thinking!” Jenny said. She uncapped the waterproof eyeliner and hopped back over to her mirror. “Plus, like, what if I cry or something? It’s going to be a pretty emotional night.”

Mandy nodded and carefully painted another nail. “I know, right? I’m super excited,” she said, and then added, a little more hesitantly, “but I’m also… kinda nervous.”

“It’s totally fine to be nervous,” Jenny said. She’d already finished the eyeliner on one dark eye and was moving onto the next, her hand steady and precise. The sharp tip of the eyeliner brush dragged effortlessly over Jenny’s lash line. God, it was almost as if the brush was drawn there magnetically. Watching Jenny do her makeup never got old.

“What’cha thinkin’ about?” Jenny asked, catching Mandy’s eye through the mirror. Mandy blinked.

“Oh,” she said. “You’re just, you know. You’re really good at makeup.” That earned her a smile.

“It’s all about practice, Mandy dearest,” Jenny said. “I grew up doing makeup for ballet. And drill team. And cheer. You pick it up fast.” She winked.

Somehow, Mandy doubted would be as good as Jenny even if she’d had the same amount of experience, but she didn’t say that.

“As soon as my nails dry, I’m going to get started on my makeup,” she said instead. “Is it okay if I borrow your eyeshadow?”

“I could do it for you, if you want.”

Mandy paused. “…What?”

“I could do your eyeshadow,” she said. “But like, only if you want me to?”

“Um.” Mandy carefully painted her last nail and screwed the cap onto the bottle. When she looked up, Jenny was watching her again through the mirror. “Yeah,” she said. “That would be super nice, actually.”

Jenny let out a gleeful little noise and grabbed her makeup bag. She practically skipped over to the bed, bouncing up onto the purple comforter next Mandy and sitting cross-legged to face her directly. “You’re going to look _so_ cute,” she promised. “I mean, you look cute all the time, of course, but tonight is going to be extra special.”

Mandy grinned, and Jenny grinned back.

“First things first,” Jenny said, scooting closer. “Color.” She pulled out a pallet from her bag of what looked like a hundred different shades of eyeshadow and stared at Mandy, chewing her lip thoughtfully. The attention made Mandy’s heart beat just a little faster. _It’s only Jenny_ , she reminded herself. Somehow that didn’t seem to help.

“I’m thinking coral,” said Jenny finally. “It’ll totally compliment your eyes.”

“I trust you,” Mandy smiled, small. “Do your worst.”

Jenny pulled out a brush, dabbed it lightly against the pinkish orange on her pallet, and leaned forward. “Can you close your eyes for me, Mandy?” she asked. “I’ll be gentle—I promise.”

Mandy swallowed. “Sure, Jen.” She took one last look at Jenny’s gorgeous dark eyes and then closed her own obediently.

The first thing she felt was the shift of the mattress beneath them and the warmth of Jenny’s hand against her upper arm. She could feel Jenny’s presence even if she couldn’t see it, close and undeniable. Her heart jumped again. _It’s Jenny, just Jenny, just Jenny, just Jenny._ At the first stroke of the brush against her eyelid, Mandy flinched.

“Oh, sorry,” Jenny said. Her voice was so close that Mandy could feel her breath on her cheek. “I should have warned you.”

“It’s fine,” Mandy said.

She didn’t flinch at the brush the next time, but it was a near thing. The feather-light touches were slowly driving her crazy. In the darkness behind her closed eyes, Mandy felt Jenny moved her hand from her shoulder to her chin, her fingers gently tilting Mandy’s face to one side for better access before they settled on Mandy’s cheek. She held her breath.

Mandy had had girl crushes before. That was what she grew up calling them—girl crushes, the quiet thrill in her chest that she could never quite seem to shake. It felt different from a crush on a boy. A crush on a boy always felt a little more deliberate, a little more obligatory. In middle school, someone had asked her which boy she had a crush on, and she’d made the snap decision to say Jason, the red-head in her history class. From then on, all of her crushes—the _normal_ crushes—had gone more or less the same. She would pick one of the more attractive boys in her year and make herself think about him, about the way he talked and the things he liked. Maybe, if he noticed her watching, they’d date. She’d dated a boy in her junior year of high school—the co-captain of the boys’ soccer team. It hadn’t ended well.

Girl crushes were different. A girl crush was less controlled, less intentional. One of her best friends on her high school volleyball team before Samwell had talked with her about it once. “It’s like, a friend crush, you know?” she’d said. “You really want to be friends with her, because she’s so pretty and nice, and you love hugging her and holding her hand and basically just being close to her. That’s a girl crush.”

And if when she was alone at night, she found herself thinking about girls instead of boys, well, that was just because Mandy was a girl, too. It was easier to make the fantasy feel real if it was about someone she could empathize with.

But, sitting there, across from Jenny on Jenny’s bed, Jenny’s hand on her face and her breath brushing her lips and her presence almost thick enough to drown in, Mandy wondered if maybe she’d had it all wrong. Maybe there was more here than she thought. Maybe a girl crush was just a crush.

“Okay. You can open your eyes now,” Jenny whispered.

Mandy blinked, the bright dorm room fluorescents harsh after the last couple minutes of darkness. Everything was a little too sharp, a little too bright. She blinked again.

Jenny was still sitting close, her eyes sparkling. The sight of her made Mandy’s breath catch in her throat.

“So?” Jenny prompted. Mandy realized she was holding out a hand mirror, and she took it automatically. “What do you think?”

Mandy peered into the mirror. Jenny had done a fantastic job, creating a perfect gradient from light to dark across the width of her eyelids. For some reason, Mandy felt a little bit like she wanted to cry. “It’s great, Jenny,” she said instead with as convincing a smile as she could manage. “Thank you. Seriously.”

Jenny beamed back. “I’m glad you like it. I can do your eyeliner and mascara too, if you want.”

“That’s okay,” Mandy said quickly. “Like, I totally trust your abilities, but I really don’t mind doing it myself.”

“Okay, no worries,” Jenny said. She hopped off the bed and headed back to the mirror to do her mascara. “We’ll have plenty of time for me to do your makeup when we’re living together. I can’t believe we’re going to be sisters!”

“Yeah,” Mandy agreed. She swallowed down the lump in her throat and tried to sound excited. “Sisters for life.”

“You’re like, pretty much the best friend I’ve ever had. You know that, right?” Jenny said “Even after we graduate and get jobs and get married and all that, we’ll be friends. You’re not going to be able to get rid of me that easily. I’ll be scheduling playdates for our grandchildren.”

Mandy laughed, and that, at least, felt genuine. “I’m totally looking forward to it,” she said, “but let’s get through this rush event first, okay?”

“ _Fine_ ,” Jenny sighed, pouting. She batted her eyes a couple times in the mirror, checking to make sure her mascara was even. “God, I look cute.”

“Jenny Wong? Cute?” Mandy teased. “ _Never_.” Jenny giggled.

The rush event would start at the Theta Alpha Theta house in two hours. If she could get through tonight, she could make sense of this whole Jenny thing tomorrow. They were teenagers, she reminded herself. They had the rest of their lives to figure things out.

 She had time.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this story, feel free to check out my other Check Please fics [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&work_search%5Bfandom_ids%5D%5B%5D=1147379&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=0&user_id=Pugglemuggle)!


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